The Inheritors
by MBScavenger1498
Summary: Twelve years after the Fourth Shinobi World War the world remains, for the most part, at peace. But peace is little consolation to those who lost so much to gain it. In the midst of this, a new generation and their parents rise to fight an enemy who's goal is nothing less than the apocalypse itself. Next generation fic focusing on Naruto's son. Let there be OC's!
1. Risen

**A/N: Yeah, I know I've got a bunch of other fics to pay attention to, but I like putting my ideas out and progress has been slow on my other stuff (borderline nonexistent on Conflux and Spirits). This idea is a combination of several Naruto fics I started but never finished. Most of them dealt with some sort of intelligent Naruto cliché. I liked the ideas I had, but they seemed too derivative of some other fics I've read… So I decided to make it a Next Generation fic. Two clichés must equal an original idea, right? Thus, I give you… **

**The Inheritors**

**A Naruto Fanfiction By MBScavenger1498**

Prologue

Risen

It was an uncharacteristically cold day in Hi no Kuni. That being said, the day before had been far colder, a surprise mid-spring blizzard had hit and much of the city was now buried in snow. Luckily for the two travelers now on their grounds, the Nara were too lazy to do anything about it, so their woods were devoid of human presence. Regardless, the snow had started to melt and the ground was alternating hard-packed ice and muddy soup beneath Teishoku's rubber-soled boots. He readjusted the large storage scroll under his arm and grimaced. "Uncle, why do I have to carry this thing? Come to think of it, why are we even here?"

The man in question turned a glare on his nephew, and though it was hidden behind a roughly hewn wooden mask, the young teenager could still feel it like the tip of something sharp pressed against his back. "I've told you not to question me before, boy. Just because you're the first child to be born into the Brotherhood in decades doesn't mean I can't do terrible things to you." The man waited several seconds then decided to elaborate. "We're going to regain an asset we lost long ago. He's hidden out here somewhere and it's our job to find him, patch him up and drag him back to your father, willing passenger or not." Teishoku turned his gaze away and his uncle grunted, turning his attention back to his surroundings.

These consisted mostly of mud, trees and the occasional deer until they finally came to their destination. It wasn't that hard to notice, considering it was a moderately sized hole in the ground, probably about a foot or two deep. Teishoku's uncle turned to him. "Boy, see if you can find anything down there." With a nod, the boy in question put his hand into a seal and closed his eyes, furrows of concentration appearing on his forehead.

"Yes, I can sense someone. He's several feet down, but definitely there." With an affirmative grunt, his uncle took the scroll from him and dropped into the hole. Once he reached the center, he unsealed several candles and lit them with a match from inside his combat-vest then drew some seals in blood from a plastic bag, a considerable feat given how much of his working-surface was uneven rubble. Finally, he got on one knee, made several hand signs of his own and placed his hands on two of the rocks.

"**Doton: ****Jōshō****Haka Saiken (Earth Release: Risen Grave Reconstruction)."**

The rocks began to shift and after a few seconds, body parts started appearing and connecting. It was a rather grisly sight, guts and stray fragments of organs and whatnot coming back together, blood seeping back into limbs even as they knitted themselves back together. A few minutes later, they formed a full person. Teishoku jumped down into the hole and looked closely at him; he'd never seen a dead man before. He'd seen people who were dying and people who had wished they were dead, but never before had he been faced with the genuine article.

It was a somewhat enlightening experience. For one thing, dead people were a lot paler than normal people. They also didn't do much of anything. But even as he watched, color was returning to the man's face and a rise and fall began in his recently unexploded chest. Suddenly, his eyes snapped open and his hand shot out, grasping Teishoku's neck. "Who… Who the fuck are you?" His voice was rasping and weak, the product of almost a decade and a half of disuse. His grip, however, hadn't weakened any, much to the boy's chagrin.

"Are you Hidan?" The man's eyes narrowed, focusing on Teishoku's uncle. "Who the fuck want's to know?" The mask hid a smirk, but the chuckle that accompanied it was evidence enough. "Is it not common courtesy to make sure you've healed the right person when they awake?" Hidan tightened his grip on Teishoku's neck. If he kept up like this, the boy would pass out. "Listen, bitch, I'm not in the mood to swap pleasantries. I have several people I have to kill beyond my usual quota, so if you don't wise the fuck up and tell me who the fuck you are, I'm gonna snap junior's little fucking neck."

The man quirked his head to the side and sighed. "You know, I'd heard you were an uncooperative one, but I didn't know it was this bad. You can relax, Immortal Man, you're among Brothers. And we need your help to further the Great Work of Jashin."

Hidan's eyes widened in recognition and he dropped Teishoku, who got to his knees, dry-heaving and gasping for air. "You're about twelve years late to be bringing the Brotherhood into this, dumbass. I told them I didn't want in when they approached me the first time, what makes you think you're any different?" The man walked forward and placed a hand on Hidan's shoulder.

"The group that tried to recruit you before was an outdated sect, we've dealt with them in the time you've been gone. We're hoping you'll come with us without a fight." There was a strange pause. "It wouldn't be any fun beating a man who can't die." Hidan's face contorted with rage at the pronunciation and he seemed like he was about to do something, but suddenly he stiffened and his eyes grew wide.

The man's grip had tightened against his shoulder and he couldn't move. It reminded him of that Nara bastard's possession jutsu. He fucking hated that asshole dickhead motherfucker!

But for all his rage, he still couldn't move. There was no use struggling, though it did little to stop him from trying. "This isn't some Shadow Jutsu you can just break out of. I've sealed every motor function receptor in your body; you can't move a muscle unless I unseal you. Boy, put him in the scroll along with the candles, I'll dispel the ritual seal." With a muffled groan, Hidan toppled over, no longer supported by the masked man's hand. Teishoku quickly ran over and started gathering up candles to reseal in the large scroll. With a chuckle, the man knelt down and undid the seal on the ground, words slithering into his fingers and disappearing somewhere on his bare arms. _'Mission accomplished.'_

**God, this has taken a long time to give a satisfying opening! Seriously, this thing has seen more iterations than a Grimm fairytale. Anyway, I'm hoping to get the first chapter up soon. I'm most of the way through. Leave a review, tell me your impressions. See ya!**

**Scavenger**


	2. Posterity

Chapter One

Posterity

"Omoide… **Omoide, pay attention!**" The boy in question blinked rapidly, looked up from his newest literary conquest (a large, old, leather-bound volume) and adjusted the old green goggles on his forehead. A few other students chuckled. "What? Sorry, I'm really getting into this one, Tenten-sensei." The teaching kunoichi's eyes narrowed. Her student's excuse wasn't unusual, but that didn't make it any less annoying. _'It's amazing how he manages to be exactly like his father, yet completely different at the same time.'_

"Omoide, I appreciate a good book as much as the next person, but I really need you to look up and pay attention." The boy frowned, but put away his book and rested his chin on his hands. Paying attention wasn't his forte, especially when he knew he could be reading about something far more interesting than old political disputes with Iwagakure. Honestly, sometimes it was like history was just a series of big men trying to kill each other for no good reason.

He looked around as Tenten launched back into her lecture. The class around him was going through the usual motions: Hiruzen was sitting next to him in his usual tiger-orange t-shirt and camouflage-patterned shorts, taking notes like a man possessed, clearly hanging on to every word their teacher said. A few other kids were following suit, though with markedly less enthusiasm. Some girls in a corner were whispering and giggling; altogether, it was a highly uneventful school day. _'I bet Enro is having a lot of fun right now. There's still so much snow outside...'_

Omoide sighed and put his head down on his arms, staring off into space. _'Let's see, sensei probably won't assign extra homework this close to the final exam, so I'll have some extra time to kill later. I could swing by Ichiraku's. Maybe I should work on my project, the release locus might need to be switched out…'_

Tenten continued to talk as Omoide contemplated the possibilities of that afternoon. His "Super-Secret, Extra Awesome Project of Epicness" as he sometimes referred to it, was his first foray into original fuuinjutsu, an art he'd discovered about a year earlier. The seal he had made was, in his humble opinion, so awesome that he was surprised nobody had thought of it before. True, it might have led to some peasant insurrections if loosed upon a less prosperous or free country, but he doubted that would be a problem in Hi no Kuni these days.

It was the kind of mental debate he could get into for hours on end, never really drawing a conclusion, but never getting tired of the contemplation either. Tenten clearing her throat loudly cut his pondering short however.

"Alright, before I dismiss you all for the day, I have a few words to say. I know all of you are excited for the final exam. Some of you might be scared; others might be cocky and overly sure of themselves. To both I can safely say get over it. One of the central skills of a shinobi is to calm and limit emotions. Self-control is essential to your survival in the field. If you pass this exam, the lives of you and your teammates may depend on your adherence to this and the other shinobi principles."

She paused for a second, smirking to herself. "Also, they're on the written exam, so you have to know them anyway." There was a large collective groan from the class and Tenten rattled off several other announcements regarding when and how they would be tested. Omoide glared at the blackboard, intent on his thoughts and not paying attention to much of anything else. He knew one thing for sure: he _would_ pass this test and when he did, he'd pass it harder than it had ever been passed or would ever be passed again. _Then_ maybe he'd be something more than that poor, poor Uzumaki boy.

**-G**

As he stared down at the gory, scattered remains of his latest victim, Sasuke couldn't help but think that maybe, just maybe, he'd gone overboard this time. His hand tingled a bit as the last remnants of the Chidori faded away. With a strangely satisfied inner grimace, he pulled out a storage scroll from a pouch on his blood-splattered ANBU uniform and emptied a large amount of oil onto the remains before pushing up his mask and blowing a small but highly concentrated fire jutsu and setting it ablaze. Soon, there would be nothing but ashes left. He pulled out a slip of paper and channeled chakra into the seal spread across the relatively small space. With a flick of his wrist, it joined the mangled body in the blaze. _'Mission accomplished.'_

It was strange what things still stuck with him to this day. Every time he killed, he could feel that strange tingle at the back of his mind, the feeling that he had just proven his superiority. It had taken ten years to get it even that far from the forefront and the last two had been a nightmare just relearning real self-control. This time, his grimace was physical; psychotherapy was most definitely not his idea of a good way to pass the time.

Quickly recomposing his emotionless face behind his dragon-patterned ANBU mask, the last Uchiha glanced out the window and narrowed his dimly glowing sharingan eyes. His target -Kemonokaze Lee- hadn't been especially powerful, at least combat-wise: he'd known some chakra manipulation and a few basic ninjutsu. The main danger he posed was as a leader; any warmonger with political influence was a potential problem and a threat to the peace now so tenuously enjoyed by the nations of the world, shinobi and otherwise. Worse, he was from Tsuchi no Kuni, which had always been one of the most war-prone nations.

Sasuke snapped himself out of his reverie and spotted an unguarded point on the wall of the would-be warlord's fortress. With a quick gesture, he shunshined there, reveling in the feel of the cool night air as his body changed partially into chakra, speeding his movement to near-instantaneous levels. He glanced around to make sure he hadn't been spotted and without any further delay, flipped over the wall's crenellations and sprinted down the side before triggering a doton ninjutsu and digging underground, his escape tunnel disappearing behind him. A few minutes late and about a mile out from the large stone building, he reappeared and swiped some dirt off of his ANBU uniform.

Tenzo looked up at Sasuke's emergence, but stayed relaxed, leaning against a tree. "You know, I think that may be a new record." Sasuke frowned, unused to any banter between him and his "parole officer" as Tenzo sometimes referred to himself. The sometimes-creepy wood-user was most often a stoic presence, watchful but not especially involved. Sasuke had been both thankful and annoyed by the distance between him and one of the few people he interacted with on a usual basis. Much as he had always valued his privacy, he couldn't stay a recluse if he planned to someday change the village -and hopefully the world- for the better.

"You know, I consider myself a good shinobi. It's my only real skill; I've never known anything else. I've only ever asked not to take a job once in my life and that was when I found out I was supposed to be looking after you." Sasuke raised an eyebrow behind his mask, but didn't comment; he had figured as much.

"I had you pegged for the egomaniacal type, but when I saw how screwed up you really were over Naruto's death, I realized I had taken you at face value." Sasuke narrowed his eyes under his mask; Naruto was still a sore subject, even after 12 years. "Where are you going with this, Yamato?"

The wood-user took off his mask and rubbed the sides of his nose, clearly uncomfortable with the whole situation. "I guess what I'm saying is… I'm sorry I judged you on your reputation. You've been nothing but a good operative these past few years."

Sasuke returned the courtesy of taking off his mask and turned a tired stare on his guard. "Thanks… It's good to know there's another person who doesn't hate me in the world…" An awkward silence settled and they both put their masks back on. With a nod, they stood up and took to the trees, dashing off for home.

**-G**

The battle was pitched and seemingly chaotic. Soldiers fought and fell and strategies crumbled like a dirt hill after a hard rain. All the same, it was nearing the same inevitable conclusion as always.

"And… Checkmate." Shikamaru smirked slightly as Hiruzen's eyes darted across the Shogi board, trying to find his king some way out of its predicament. With a sigh and a hung head, he gave up; he was smirking sadly. "I'll beat you someday, Shikamaru-oji." Really, it was a wonder he'd lasted as long as he had; Shikamaru's intellect was legendary even for a Nara and he'd always refused to go easy on the boy. A lack of challenge would do nothing but make him soft as far as the Nara Clan Head was concerned.

Omoide looked up and studied the board for a second, head quirked thoughtfully. "That was a nice one Nara-san. Risky." He was sitting slightly off to the side, with his nose stuck into a book as per usual.

"So, you all will be graduating soon." Hiruzen's expression visibly brightened. "Yeah, I can't wait! I'll finally be a real shinobi, like my dad!" Shikamaru's smirk became something of a tired smile. Hiruzen could practically see the memories playing behind the Nara shinobi's eyes whenever he got that expression. He'd noticed that with a lot of people.

"I still remember my graduating class: one of the biggest batches of crazy I've ever seen in one place…" Omoide's gaze promptly dropped back to his book. He'd never been much for nostalgic stories of the days before the War. They usually somehow involved or mentioned his father and quite frankly, he'd heard enough about the guy to last a lifetime.

Luckily, Shikamaru didn't stay on the subject. "By the way, who's at the top of the class this year?" Omoide frowned. "It's a tie between Hyuga Shinsei and Yokoana Kengen. I think they're hoping for a tie-breaker on the written portion." The older shinobi raised an eyebrow. "Two students tied for first? I don't think that's happened since before I graduated. Anyone else interesting?"

Omoide frowned again. "Not really. There's Shirogane from the Inuzuka and Hiro from the Yamanaka, but beside that, it's pretty much your average civilian-borns and a few kids from minor clans." Shikamaru smirked. "I wouldn't dismiss civilian-borns so easily. Your grandfather was one and look at how he turned out." Omoide rolled his eyes, clearly less than convinced. "Yeah, we'll see, I guess."

Hiruzen and Shikamaru set the board up again and Omoide turned back to his book. After a few minutes, he checked his watch and his eyes widened. "Oh, damn, it's almost six. I should get going; you know how Mom can get." Hiruzen's normally jovial expression momentarily lost its flare at the mention of Omoide's mother. With a respectful nod to the Nara and a short fist bump to his Sarutobi friend, Omoide got up, threw on his black and blue jacket and walked out the door, closing it firmly behind him. The one man and one almost-shinobi left in the room turned back to their game, happy to sit and play, the only sound the slight taps of pieces being moved across the Shogi board.

**-G**

"Hey, Mom, I'm home!" Omoide turned around and closed the door against the cold before wiping excess snow off of his shoes and dumping his backpack onto a chair. His house wasn't spectacularly big, but it was much better than most of the apartments around town. It was two floors with a kitchen/dining/living room on the first and three bedrooms on the second, one for Omoide, another for his mother and a guest room in the back.

"Omoide, there you are!" Hinata Hyuga walked briskly into the entryway and hugged her son, smiling a bit. "I was starting to get worried, you know I don't like it when you go to Hiruzen's house without asking." Omoide averted his gaze, but returned the hug. "Sorry, mom, I forgot." Hinata turned a long-suffering smile on her son. "It's okay, just try to remember next time. Dinner should be ready in a half hour or so. I assume you want to work on your project?" Omoide nodded. "Yeah, it's really starting to come along now." The Ex-Hyuga Heiress smiled warmly. "Good, I'll call you when dinner's ready."

Omoide gave a slight smile back at his mother and turned to walk up the stairs to his room. It was a small, barely organized thing; roughly square with a small area where the wall went outward. A bookshelf was wedged into the indentation, filled with a good deal more books than it was probably designed to hold. They were varied, from children's picture books to large tomes that no child under the age of fourteen should have even been able to touch.

In another corner was his bed, once again small, but not to any extreme. A bed-stand next to it was piled high with even more books along with a small lamp. Finally, a disheveled-looking wooden desk occupied the opposite corner, covered in partially rolled scrolls and writing supplies from ink to pencils.

But what really interested Omoide was the diagram in the center of the desk. On it were several very well drawn perspectives of a human arm with seals running the length of it. With a tired sigh, he pulled out his chair, sat down and pulled uot a pencil. _'Right, so the release locus…'_

**And that's it, that's a wrap, people; the first chapter, finally done. Hope you liked it. Note: My description of shunshin here is not necessarily canon; it's just how I figure it would work considering it's not an instantaneous teleportation technique. Also, a digital cookie goes to anyone who can spot the Avatar: The Abridged Series reference in this chapter. **

**Translations (Please don't come down on me too hard for any crazy screw-ups; my tools are rather limited): **

_**Omoide:**_** According to Google Translate, this means memories. **

_**Enro:**_** This means long road or journey, once again according to Google Translate.**

_**Kemonokaze:**_** As close as I can figure, this means beast-wind.**

_**Shinsei:**_** New birth, rebirth.**

_**Yokoana:**_** Cave, tunnel.**

_**Shirogane:**_** Silver**


	3. Ambition's New Face

Chapter 2

Ambition's New Face

Tsunade was in a bad mood tonight. She had been forced to work late and the paperwork responsible was some of the most monotonous she had done in a while. It almost made her long for the days of Akatsuki, when she usually had at least a few interesting things on her desk every day…

But that was a bad thought. She couldn't get like that, she was the Hokage; she wasn't allowed to be depressed. She was making steady progress against the ever-present pile and there wasn't a large amount left. She would be out of here within the hour and then she could get the sleep she so desperately needed.

But she'd have to put that plan on hold; she was interrupted when a whoosh of air alerted her to someone appearing at her window. Tsunade muttered in irritation, but turned a face as impassive as she could manage toward her visitor. Without a sound, he dropped from the windowsill to the floor before walking in front of Tsunade's desk and taking his mask off.

Sasuke hadn't changed an incredible amount in the last twelve years. No major physical change had befallen him at least. He had a noticeable scar on his shoulder where his arm had been reattached by Katsuyu, but besides that he was the same Uchiha. Still, there was a new sense of… acceptance he hadn't had before his best friend's death. Tsunade might have even called it maturity, loath as she was to give the man any sort of compliment.

"Hello, Hokage-sama." The Slug Sannin nodded in greeting. "Hello, Dragon. I trust you encountered few difficulties?" He nodded. "Kemonokaze Lee is dead. There were no witnesses and as few remains as I can manage in my current state. I soaked the corpse in oil and set it on fire. There should be minimal chakra left on his person considering the seal you gave me. I doubt his forces include anyone with the abilities to detect what's left." Tsunade turned back to her paperwork. "Yes, I expected nothing less. You'll receive your payment tomorrow. You're dismissed."

But Sasuke didn't leave. Instead, he looked away awkwardly, as though gathering his thoughts.

"Senju-sama, as you know I've wanted to more fully assimilate back into the village for some time. To that end, I'd like to take one of this year's Genin Squads." Tsunade's expression shifted ever so slightly deeper into the frown that she'd been wearing already. "No. That would cause me problems I really don't want to deal with. I don't think parents would like having their kids under the supervision of a former missing-nin."

Sasuke nodded tiredly. "Yes, but if I can get through this and produce a decently functioning team, I might gain some respect, if only among the village's other shinobi. I won't pretend that it will be easy, but I think that this is a good step back into the public. I know you don't like the idea of putting me in charge of children any more than the parents will, but we're a bit lacking in really powerful shinobi these days; if I were on official service I could be a good deterrent to any hostilities. The way I see it, this would kill two birds with one stone."

Tsunade's expression was somewhat contemplative, though still doubtful. She didn't like the idea, but after hearing him out, she had to admit it had upsides. She had other ANBU operatives who could pull off his jobs and Tenzo wouldn't have to stop overseeing him. At first, she had dismissed the idea out of hand, but now…

Sasuke sighed and looked Tsunade directly in the eyes, deciding to be completely frank. "Look, you know my goal is the Hokage position and I can't get to that unless the village becomes used to me again. The facts are, you're not getting any younger and Kakashi's enigmatic at best these days what with his ongoing trip. I'm not even going to delve into what his mental state might be. Someday you're either going to die or abdicate and we both know that if I didn't have this seal on me, I'd be the strongest shinobi in this village. It may be asking a lot for you to trust my intentions, but if you give me this chance to prove myself, I won't let you down." With a respectful bow, he stepped towards the window. With a last glance, he said, "I'll expect your response by tomorrow night." and shunshined away into the darkness.

Tsuade brow furrowed contemplatively. Sasuke was still something of an enigma. After the war, she had been in no shape to judge him herself but even by the time she had gotten out of her coma, he'd been in a bad place. He'd been messed up badly by Naruto's death on top of the shit he'd had to deal with throughout his life; he hadn't exactly been a model for mental stability. Thankfully, he'd eventually gotten his mind straight, due in large part to Yamanaka Ino's mental treatments.

Just recently, she'd decided to give him some covert missions, all effectively solo and all befitting his skill level. Still, she had made him keep his seal. Tsunade didn't care how trustworthy he acted, Sasuke with the Mangekyou was a near-unstoppable force, if only because of his Susano'o. There was no way in frozen Hell she was going to deal with that. Unless she decided to execute him, she could only hope he wouldn't turn around someday and stab them all in the back.

With a resigned sigh, she turned back to her paperwork. Her night was far from over and she had a lot to think about.

**-G**

Omoide sat in his usual place at the right-most front desk of his Academy class that day, with his usual book in front of him and his best friend on his left. Hiruzen was napping in his seat, his head resting on his forearms and his green winter coat draped around his shoulders like a blanket. Yamanaka Hiro, who was glaring at the board as though it had done him a grievous wrong, filled the final seat.

"You know, there's this new thing called sleeping at night. You should try it some time. It can do wonders for you." Hiruzen grunted in response to Omoide's sarcastic comment. "And you should invest in something other than books. Someday, you're going to try to read one too many and your brain is going to run out of space." Omoide raised an eyebrow and scratched the whisker marks on his face, eyes still trained on his reading material. "That'll happen the day you come up with decent smack-talk."

At that moment, Tenten walked into the room, prompting almost immediate silence from the class. They all knew how scary she could be when someone pissed her off.

"Good morning class. Sorry I'm late, my oven broke and I had to wait for the repair guy to turn up and charge me for the information that it was unfixable." _'Translation: she's already pissed off.'_ Omoide decided at that moment to preemptively put his book away. There was no sense in provoking the fire-breathing dragon that was their sensei when she got angry.

"Alright, as you all know, tomorrow is your graduation exam. In light of that, I'm giving you today to practice whatever you think you most need to work on. Ninjutsu and taijutsu will be practicing outside, theory and history will be meeting in here. Split off and please make the most of your last day; you're going to need it."

The class took their sensei's advice, with about half deciding to head outside. Omoide and Hiruzen were too lazy or tired respectively to practice taijutsu in the slowly-disipating cold and both of them had the Academy ninjutsu down, so they elected to stay where they were and pretend to pay attention.

Not much happened after that and Omoide quickly realized that without his book, he was becoming bored out of his mind. Hiruzen did his best to stay awake and by the end of class, Omoide felt like pulling his blue-black hair out, but altogether, it was an uneventful day.

**-G**

"You should really play shogi more often. Queen A8 to A2; checkmate." Omoide frowned, "Eh, I'm too busy reading. I just forgot my book at the Academy and I'm not about to run out in the rain to get it back." A roar of thunder boomed as though to punctuate the young Uzumaki's statement. The rain had been coming down in sheets since mid-afternoon and showed no sign of slowing down. Omoide and Hiruzen had decided to go to the former's house and gotten there just ahead of the downpour. Luckily for them, Hiruzen's Shogi set had come with it's own sealing scroll and he made a point of keeping it with him as often as possible. Omoide had spent the following hour or two relentlessly bashing his head against the metaphorical brick wall that was his friend's Shogi skills.

"No, I'm serious. Shikamaru says it exercises the brain in a way most things don't, helps you plan better, predict your opponent's moves." Omoide grunted and began to reset the pieces. His mother was off at a friend's house; he hadn't bothered to ask which one's. She'd probably be back after the rain stopped. "Alright, pawn D2 to D4." Hiruzen smirked and moved his own piece. Both boys quickly became lost in the game, even if it was largely one-sided. Omoide's defense wasn't that bad, but his offense left far too much to be desired and he was too impulsive to work out any big overarching strategy. Within five minutes, they were drawing toward a conclusion again. Needless to say, it was not looking good for Omoide.

The sound of the door being opened and closed signaled the arrival of Hinata. With a start, both boys realized that the rain had stopped, probably a while ago from the lack of large clouds in the sky. With the downpour over, it was looking to be a remarkably pleasant evening.

Omoide's door creaked open and Hinata's troubled gaze fell on the two boys. "Hiruzen, it's good to see you. Your mother wants you home. She has something she needs to talk to you about." The boy nodded, clearly catching the seriousness behind the Hyuga's pleasant tone. "Alright, I just need to pick up my stuff." Quickly, he gathered up all the pieces of his shogi set and resealed them in their scroll before walking to the door. "I'll see you tomorrow, Omoide." The boy in question nodded back and turned a questioning look on his mother. "What's happened? You look like you've seen a ghost or something." Hinata shook her head and tried to put on a smile. "It's nothing, the Naras just found some troubling residual chakra in their forest. It's probably nothing."

Omoide didn't miss the repetition in her statement, and guessed she was trying to convince herself as much as him. "It doesn't sound like nothing. Why would that involve Hiruzen?" Hinata shook her head again, as though she were trying to rid herself of whatever was worrying her. "That's for him to tell you if he feels like it. I'm going to get started on dinner, do you want to help?" Omoide thought for a moment and nodded. He clearly wasn't getting anything else from his mom and he wasn't going to start another book until he finished his current one. Besides, he needed the distraction, otherwise he'd just get nervous about the test tomorrow.

"Sure, sounds good. I can work on my project afterwards. So, what're we making?" Hinata's expression was less troubled now that she had something to focus on. "I was thinking katsudon for the test tomorrow." Omoide smiled at the mention of his favorite dish. "Sounds good!"

**-G**

Sasuke made a point of ignoring the glares he received as he walked home from Ichiraku Ramen. Teuchi and Ayame hadn't liked serving him at first, but they had warmed to him after they realized just how much he'd been affected by Naruto's death. He smirked a bit under his hooded jacket; they seemed to have a habit of serving people the village had a dislike for.

Feeling the cool mid-spring wind on his face, Sasuke allowed his thoughts to take him away for the last few blocks of his walk, not really letting his guard down, but allowing his instinctual state of high alert to fade. Finally, he arrived at his apartment building and walked through the door.

The doorman on duty gave him a bored nod, likely not even recognizing him under his jacket. The last Uchiha returned it curtly and walked up the stairs to the fourth floor. A stroll down a hallway and a turn of a lock later, he was finally back in his apartment.

It wasn't anything special, a simple two-room affair. He had decided to save the considerable money he received for his missions in an attempt to build up some sort of clan fortune, unlikely as there ever being a real clan looked at the moment. Besides, he was used to Spartan living conditions; he had no qualms about living in the small space and few friends to worry about it.

A tapping on the glass of his window alerted him to an ANBU's presence on his balcony. Tenzo was holding a small bundle of money in his left hand while his right was raised to knock on the glass again. Sasuke was quickly across the room and opening the window. "Hello Sasuke. Nice night, huh?" The man in question raised an eyebrow. "Yeah, absolutely beautiful, is that my paycheck?" Tenzo held it up and passed it to his… Well, not his partner, but charge sounded weird in the mokuton user's mind.

"The Hokage said she had a message for you as well. Apparently you've been 'cleared for the requested duties,' whatever that means. I'm to continue surveillance duty on you, something about making sure you hadn't picked up any of her old teammate's worse qualities. You mind telling me what she meant?"

Sasuke smiled to himself. "It means I'm being given a Genin team and you're going to make sure I don't try to steal their bodies or something. Thanks for the message Tenzo, I'll probably see you tomorrow." With a wave of his hand, his supervisor disappeared into the night. As he took off his coat and prepared for bed, Sasuke couldn't help thinking that maybe things were finally starting to look up.

**Okay, hello again people! Not much to say except that the warm-up phase of this story is well underway and will hopefully soon be concluded! WOOHOO!**

**Anyway, hope you enjoyed the chapter! Review please!**

**Scavenger**


	4. Fulfillment and Skeletons

**This chapter has now been revised for your reading pleasure. YAY!**

Chapter Three

Fulfillment and Skeletons

On principle, Uzumaki Omoide wasn't prone to eavesdropping. Sure, he could do it pretty well, shinobi were expected to be capable of covert surveillance missions after all, but when it came to everyday life, he didn't make a habit of getting into other peoples' business, mostly because they're problems were boring. All the same, when he heard something about someone who interested him, he tended to pay attention.

"Hey, did you hear about the Uchiha?" "Yeah, it's a disgrace. What's the Hokage thinking putting _him_ in charge of _children_?" "I don't know, but if my son gets put on his squad, I'm pulling him out of the force."

Omoide frowned to himself. _'That was weird; the only Uchiha still alive is Sasuke-oji. He's taking a squad? Also, **can** a parent pull a child after they graduate? I might need to read up on that…'_ Omoide shook the thoughts from his mind; he had to focus. If either thing was true, he'd know soon…

With his thoughts thoroughly dashed, he walked through the doors of the Academy. This was the culmination of all his efforts, the graduation test. By the end of it all he might, no he _would_, be a shinobi of Konohagakure, the Village Hidden in the Leaves. Maybe then people would start to see him for the person he was, and not for who his parents happened to be.

He took a seat in his usual place next to Hiruzen and said a brief greeting. The boy in question was muttering snippets from history textbooks and the occasional bit of jutsu theory under his breath, eyes slightly wider than usual. They both passed the following half an hour doing the same thing, though Omoide managed to keep his muttering to a minimum. He managed to get through most of the major events in Konoha's history and a good deal of jutsu theory before Tenten arrived to start the test.

"Alright, kids, sit down and shut up!" There was a mad scramble as the various almost-genin complied with their sensei's request. Her early-morning scowl was replaced with a smile at the quick movement. "Alright, you all know what we're doing today, I hope you all studied and practiced because we are not making any exceptions: if you don't meet expectations, you're coming back next year. We'll be doing the written portion first, so stow anything you brought with you and get ready. Pencils will be passed out along with the test…"

And with that, they were off.

**-G**

**"WOOHOO! YEAH! WHO'S A NINJA!? I'M A NINJA! SUCK IT BITCHES!"** Omoide watched incredulously as Inuzuka Shirogane literally danced her merry way out of the testing room, followed by her infinitely calmer ninken, yelling her own praises and being generally as disruptive as possible. As the girl walked triumphantly out of the room, another not-quite-as-loud proclamation joined hers: "Sarutobi Hiruzen, you're up next!"

Hiruzen smiled shakily and Omoide gave him a supportive grin. With an expression as stoic as he could muster, his friend walked into the testing chamber, leaving Omoide alone in the classroom. With a sigh, he leaned back and calmed his surging nerves. He would be fine and so would Hiruzen; if he hadn't been such an idiot about sleeping and studying, he might have been in the running for rookie of the year. This was one of the few times Omoide had actually seen Hiruzen's confidence lapse. Come to think of it, he'd been acting sort of subdued all day, not in a depressed way, but he was definitely preoccupied.

All the same, the test should be a piece of cake for him. The teachers all said they'd never seen a henge as detailed as Hiruzen's and he was at the very least solid on everything else. Omoide on the other hand, was definitely not the best, but he was also far from substandard. His chakra control and reflexes just weren't precise enough to go that extra mile, likely as a result of his large reserves. His mom said he must have gotten that from his father; apparently it had run in his family.

His father. Omoide hadn't always been so bitter on the subject, hell he'd been practically ecstatic to hear that his father was a hero as a little kid. But then he'd started to get older and he'd noticed something. Everyone pitied him, and he hated it. Every single one of them was guilty: the adults and the kids, all except Hiruzen: the boy who understood perfectly.

It was almost creepily convenient how perfectly set up they where to become friends. Omoide had stayed with Kurenai and Hiruzen while his mother was away on missions so they could keep their somewhat comfortable lifestyle. Both of them had never met their fathers, heroes of the village. Their complementary personalities had gone together perfectly. A few years had passed, they'd entered the academy together, and now here they were, ready to graduate.

Hopefully.

His musings must have taken longer than he'd expected them to, because they were suddenly interrupted by the door creaking open. Hiruzen was clutching his shiny new Konohagakure headband so tightly that it was a wonder it hadn't bent under the pressure. His eyes were wide in a sort of delayed reaction happiness. Omoide's face broke into a grin "Congratulations." Hiruzen nodded and gestured generally towards the door, not blinking once, as though he thought he might wake up and find that it was all a dream. "They told me to send you in, last one and all. I'll wait around." Omoide nodded in thanks and smirked a bit. "Relax, man, it's not a dream, you did it. Now, I'll go in there and pass, and then we'll both be ninja. This won't take five minutes."

If only the confident words had been echoed by his mind. As he stood in front of Tenten-sensei and Iruka-jiji, he could feel his heart beating so hard he was sure everyone could hear it. Resolutely, he placed his hands in the correct seals and performed a transformation.

Several jutsu later, he walked out to the classroom only to be tackled by a hug from Hiruzen, whose forehead now bore an etched Konoha Leaf. Omoide tied his headband around his neck and grinned back. Hiruzen celebrated all the way to his house and, stoic as he tended to be, Omoide couldn't keep the grin off of his face.

**-G**

Later, as the time ticked into the wee hours of the morning, Omoide could be found burning the midnight oil at his desk. He was thoroughly engrossed in the workings of his project and had been so for quite some time. He'd had to sharpen his pencil more times than he could remember. If Hiruzen had been there, he would have called the young Uzumaki out for hypocrisy.

His intense concentration was interrupted by the sound of someone knocking on his window. There was only one person he knew who would have cause to do such a thing in the middle of the night. He quickly got up and walked over to the window.

With a heave, he lifted it open and grinned. "Sasuke-oji! For a moment, I thought you'd forgotten." Sasuke permitted himself the smallest of smiles and leaned back on the railing of Omoide's small metal balcony. "Hey, I heard you graduated." Omoide nodded his head and fiddled with the metal plate hanging from his neck. Sasuke's smile lessened noticeably. "I guess you've picked up on how I'm taking a team this year?" Omoide nodded again, "Yeah, I heard some parents talking about it."

Sasuke smirked at the smaller boy. "Only bad things I'm sure." Omoide chuckled and nodded. "Yeah, they were being idiots. How did you swing this anyway? I know the Hokage doesn't like you." Sasuke raised an eyebrow. "I appealed to her sense of logic. She needs me to be visible so as to deter any enemies and I need to be more visible if I ever want to become Hokage. It was a win-win situation and whatever else Tsunade-sama is, she isn't stupid."

With a tired sigh, he turned to rest his elbows on the railing and looked out over the village. Even just twelve years after being all but obliterated, it was more of a city than a village, and it wasn't even fully rebuilt yet. There were unfinished construction projects littered between the buildings which covered the now-refilled crater that Konoha had been. "It's interesting how things seem to come full circle, isn't it? These people used to adore me."

Omoide raised his eyebrows, interest piqued. Sasuke didn't like to talk about the past, so if he volunteered information, it was probably a good idea to listen. "When me and your father were kids, we hated each other. I was a self-obsessed asshole and he was a loudmouth idiot. But even if he was the more likable of us, everyone hated him and loved me and I never once stopped to question why." He turned back to the kid behind him and smirked. "It's an interesting juxtaposition, don't you think? He's a hero now and everyone except you hates me." With another sigh, he broke out of his thoughts and tapped Omoide's goggle-clad forehead. "I'll see you sometime tomorrow. In the meantime, get some sleep; you're going to need all your wits about you for what's coming. Happy graduation." Then he turned back to the city and shunshined away.

_'Dammit.'_ Omoide thought, frowning into the night. _'I really need to learn how to do that.'_

**-G**

Hiruzen couldn't sleep. This wasn't especially strange; though he didn't know it, many of his classmates were just as apprehensive about team assignments the next day, or depressed by their failure to pass the Genin Exam. What's more, he didn't sleep much in the first place, tending to sit up practicing playing Shogi against himself. But Hiruzen had even more reason to find sleep elusive than usual. He wasn't even doing anything tonight; to the eyes of any observer, he would appear to be staring vacantly at the ceiling. No, tonight, his thoughts were of his father.

He'd always been proud of his lineage. His father had been a powerful member of the Twelve Guardian Ninja, the teacher of Ino-Shika-Chou's second generation and the holder of a 35-million ryō bounty. All of these were great achievements for a shinobi and from what he could glean, the man had been an opinionated, blunt and, when it mattered, kind man; the kind of person a boy could look up to.

But, as Omoide sometimes reminded him, he'd never actually known Sarutobi Asuma and therefore couldn't be sure what his old man had been like. He had a man named Hidan to thank for that: a man who literally couldn't die and took pleasure in pain and death, regardless of how or why or to whom it was inflicted. The very thought was nightmare inducing. Hiruzen was fully aware of and happy with his skill as a shinobi, but for the life of him, he couldn't think how one might truly stop a person like that. And now, he might be back. _'… Fuck.'_

Hiruzen wasn't a vindictive person, and he knew for a fact that Shikamaru-oji had taken the death of Asuma "out of the sadistic motherfucker's ass" with exactly 2,523 precision-blast paper bombs, so at first he hadn't felt especially vindictive toward the man. Really, what more could he have done to him than what had already been done? Life as a buried head was sure to be torture for anyone, and he could think of no worse sentence… But now the body was missing and there was strange chakra all over the area, and for some reason, it changed everything. His father's killer was out there somewhere, free of his prison and likely no worse for having spent so long as a severed head. It infuriated him and he hated that it infuriated him and gods dammit, why couldn't he just stay buried!

With a groan, Hiruzen turned over and tried to fall asleep. It was late enough as it was, and he had to wake up early. Tomorrow was too damn important to miss because he couldn't keep his emotions in check.

It was another hour or so before he finally drifted off, dreams plagued by skeletons trying to goad him into a fight. It was by no stretch of the imagination a restful night.

**WOOHOO, ANOTHER CHAPTER DONE!**

**Anyway, I'm only sort of happy with this one. I wanted to get into team assignments, but in the end, I thought this was a better ending point.**

**In response to the creatively named "Guest": Which parts of it are confusing? I like getting constructive criticism and if you could be a bit more specific, it would go a long way toward me improving my work. Thanks for the review and have a nice day!**

**In fact, everyone have a nice day! **

**See you next time,**

**Scavenger**


	5. Double Take

Chapter 4

Double Take

Uchiha Sasuke had never been an especially patient person, nor had he ever developed a penchant for laziness. He had lived much of his life working toward specific goals and so had spent little of it idly. The result relevant to the current situation was that Sasuke very rarely turned up late for anything, let alone the assigning of his first genin squad. It just wasn't how he operated.

He'd been standing outside the classroom window for about fifteen minutes, waiting for Tenten to finish listing the teams and listening in with basic chakra allocation to the ears. He'd passed the time evaluating each one. _'Infiltration team, heavy hitters, fodder, fodder, more fodder, tracking…'_ It was sort of sad how few teams had serious skills to work with. Very few possessed anyone from a clan and barely any civilian-borns ever possessed capabilities beyond the academy basics. He looked up at the sky, wondering idly if Tenten was dragging this out on purpose.

With a sigh, he straightened his newly acquired flak jacket and checked all his supplies; the weight of his chokuto was there at his hip, his shuriken were sealed into bandages on his wrists, his kunai pouch was fully stocked, exploding tags and other sealing equipment were in his chest pockets, and finally, there was an exploding tag under his headband, which was currently tied around his arm. Personal preference for staying alive aside, ANBU protocol tended to stick with you.

"… Team Nine, under Tokubetsu Jonin Ebisu. Finally, Uzumaki Omoide, Sarutobi Hiruzen and Yokoana Kengen will comprise Team Ten under Jonin Uchiha Sasuke. Your sensei should be arriving shortly." Sasuke smirked, _'Time to make an impression.'_ Barely a moment passed as Sasuke cleared his expression, formed a brief hand sign and disappeared in a flurry of lightning chakra, reappearing next to Tenten in a similar display of light. He felt an inward sense of accomplishment as several students yelped or "oooo"-ed at the sudden, bright shunshin.

"I am Uchiha Sasuke. I'm here for Team Ten." He made sure to keep his voice low and balanced, with just enough disinterested mixed in to annoy his new students. After all, he had a reputation to uphold. His inward smirk widened as he noticed Omoide raising an eyebrow, clearly unimpressed by his new sensei's showmanship. Both him and Hiruzen stood up and walked down the steps to him, while the team's third member, Kengen, came down the opposite set, clearly unhappy with something.

Sasuke gave them a quick once-over, and nodded. "Meet me on the roof." Then he disappeared again, this time forgoing the lightning. At the last moment, he caught something that sounded suspiciously like a muttered "Showoff."

Several minutes later, the three newly graduated boys filed out onto the roof, clearly annoyed with having been left behind to walk up the stairs. Sasuke himself was sitting much as Kakashi had on Team Seven's assignment day, leaning on the railing surrounding the Academy's roof. He motioned for the three to sit on the steps in front of him and took a moment to get a really good look at them.

Omoide was as usual; spikey blue-black hair pushed even further up by his ever-present goggles while his newly acquired hitae-ate hung around his neck in much the same way his mother wore hers. He was otherwise decked out in a faded turquoise t-shirt and dark blue pants. On the left side of his chest, there was a modified Uzumaki whirlpool, incorporating the flame motif and yellow outline of the Hyuga clan symbol. Hiruzen was in his usual tiger orange t-shirt and camouflage shorts, his hitae-ate proudly displayed on his forehead, tied in the classic headband style. Neither of these surprised Sasuke, he was after all, at least semi-acquainted with both.

But the last was a mystery. He was clad in black shinobi pants taped off at the ankles and a dark grey long-sleaved shirt displaying his clan's symbol in red on the shoulders. His Hitae-ate was tied in a bandana style over straight, forest green hair tied into a short ponytail at the back. He'd of course read Kengen's profile: he was the son of a civilian-born shinobi and a kunoichi from the Hagoromo clan. His grandparents on his mother's side had raised him after his parents and older sister had died in the battle against the Juubi. They were the last of the clan. Beyond that, nobody seemed to know much about him. He was supposedly skilled in his family's vibration-based ninjutsu, but he could field-test that later.

"Alright, as you know, I am Uchiha Sasuke. I've been selected by the Hokage to train you as a squad. It is my hope that you can be molded into a functioning group of shinobi." The team's reactions to this were mixed. Omoide and Hiruzen were their usual counterbalancing selves: restrainedly interested and happily exuberant respectively. There was a certain amount of annoyance in Kengen's green eyes, but he was at least paying attention. Sasuke continued, using the same disinterested, "I don't have time for this" tone as before.

"I know some of you, but all the same, I think we should introduce ourselves: explain our likes, dislikes, dreams for the future." He finished with an almost lazy wave toward the three graduates, indicating they should continue. Hiruzen looked questioningly at the other two before starting his introduction.

"My name is Sarutobi Hiruzen. I like playing shogi, training and Shikamaru-oji. I dislike… vegetables and being tired I guess. And my dream is to become a great shinobi, like my dad; one that kids will learn about in the Academy one day!" Sasuke betrayed no outward reaction. "Omoide, you go next."

"Okay, sure. My name is Uzumaki Omoide obviously. I like books, my mother and learning new things. I dislike morons and jerks. My dream for the future is to… I don't know. Become my own person I guess." Sasuke waved toward Kengen. The boy's eyes narrowed.

"My name is Yokoana Kengen of the Hagoromo clan. I like training. I hate traitors," his eyes focused on Sasuke momentarily, accusation clear in his gaze, "and bad music. My dream for the future is to rebuild my clan and return it to its rightful place in the village."

Sasuke was struck in that moment by how much this boy reminded him of himself. Obsession with his clan: check. Bad disposition: check. Large amount of hate directed at a person: check. Sometimes, he got the terrible feeling that the universe was watching his life and laughing at him. At times like that, he tended to either get depressed or angry, sometimes both. For the moment, though, he pushed the feeling off and focused on his task.

"Now that that's out of the way, I'm going to explain some things to you. Technically, you aren't genin yet." Hiruzen's mouth gaped open in horror and Omoide's eyes narrowed in annoyance. Kengen looked restrainedly murderous. It was the Sarutobi of the group who spoke up first. "What? Did we do something wrong? Are we going back to the Academy? Please tell me we're not going back to-" Sasuke silenced him with a sharp look and held his hand up. "Sarutobi Hiruzen, I am your commanding officer. When I'm talking, you shut up." Hiruzen quickly complied, though he looked fit to explode from anxiety.

"Like I said, you're not genin yet, the operative word being _yet_. There is a second test all graduates must pass, administered by their jonin sensei. The academy exam is used to weed out the hopeless cases. This test will decide if you're good enough for active duty." Hiruzen was practically steaming at the ears from too many pent up questions. Sasuke could have sworn that his face was starting to turn purple. With a sigh, the last Uchiha motioned for him to talk. Like a waterfall, his words spewed forth.

"**Sensei, why didn't we know about it before, why does your hair do that thing in the back, is this your fist team, and why are your eyes turning red, what's the test going to be, am I talking to loud?**" Sasuke blinked momentarily and turned his sharingan off. He hadn't activated it accidentally like that in years. The only explanation would be that Hiruzen had literally talked fast enough that it had activated instinctively to compensate… He couldn't decide if that was impressive or scary.

"Well… 1: It's a surprise, 2: my hair does that naturally, 3: yes, 4: it's a sharingan, 5: I was getting to that and 6: yes." Hiruzen blinked slowly, as though trying to process the answers correctly then smiled and sat back down. He hadn't even realized he was standing. "Cool, thanks!" Sasuke sighed inwardly and jumped back into his explanation. Hiruzen would be a handful… if the team passed, of course.

"The test will be one of survival… Survival against me." He paused for a moment; raising dramatic tension was something he had always been adept at. "We'll all meet in Training Ground Three tomorrow, at 9:30 in the morning. Be prompt, and don't eat breakfast unless you want to throw up. I'll explain the test then, but be sure to bring all your ninja tools. Goodbye." And with that, he disappeared in a whirl of leaves and air.

Hiruzen looked on for a moment, then turned to Omoide, incredulousness written all over his face. "How many different ways can he do that?" Omoide shrugged and stood up. "No idea. You wanna go train? I found a good clearing near the hot springs." Hiruzen nodded enthusiastically. "Hey, Kengen! You wanna-" But the boy was already jumping across to the next building, probably on his way to train alone. Omoide shrugged; the guy was a jerk anyway. "Come on, I have a feeling we're gonna need to practice hard for tomorrow." The two friends walked over to the stairs and started down, ready for a hard day's work.

**-G**

The next day, all three boys sat around three stumps in training ground. Well, Omoide and Hiruzen were sitting. Kengen was pacing. "He said to be here fifteen minutes ago! Where is that asshole?" Omoide's eyes narrowed dangerously. "He's no more of an asshole than you are, Kengen. Of course, that's not saying much, is it?" The green-haired boy whirled on his new teammate, clearly angry. "Shut up, Uzumaki!" Omoide raised an eyebrow. "You know, I expected better insults coming from the runner up for Rookie of the Year. I guess that's why you came in second, huh?" Kengen was furious. Omoide tensed in case the prodigy attacked. The two might have fought if Sasuke hadn't appeared at that moment.

"That's enough, both of you." The cold seriousness in the voice was enough to silence both boys. Hiruzen visibly relaxed as their yelling came to a halt. "Good, you're all here." Kengen glared at him. "You're late." Sasuke might have rolled his eyes if he wasn't so good at masking his emotions. He turned an unimpressed look on Kengen and decided that statement was best left ignored.

"Now, we are here today to perform your _real_ genin test. I should tell you ahead of time, these test are designed to eliminate two thirds of your graduating class and mine is especially hard. If you want to quit, you should speak up now." He looked around for a second. None of the boys said anything, not that he'd expected them to. With a nod, he pulled two worn, metal bells from his pocket and held them up for all three to see.

"For this test, you will have to take these bells from me. You'll need to take and keep one bell to pass and get lunch." He gestured offhandedly to several boxes, which must have appeared with him. Hiruzen and Kengen both stared at the bells as though consumed by them. Omoide however, looked bothered, as though he couldn't quite figure something out. Sasuke filed the detail away for later. "If you don't manage to get a bell, not only will you not get lunch and be tied to a log so as to watch everyone else eat without you, you will also fail and be sent back to the academy for remedial training. As you can see, there are only two bells, meaning one of you is headed for the stump no matter what."

The boys' reactions were mixed. Omoide's brow furrowed, as though he were desperately trying to figure out some sort of puzzle. Hiruzen looked fairly annoyed and Kengen had that murderous glare back. _'That might get annoying.'_ "You will have two hours to get a bell and pass. If you don't by noon, you're going back to the academy, and disgrace." He casually leaned over and tied the bells to the right belt-loop of his pants and continued in the same informal, bored tone. "You can use any means necessary to take them. If you expect to even touch me, then you're going to have to attack with intent to kill."

It was then that Kengen made his move. Drawing a kunai, he drew back to launch it at his sensei. Or at least he would have if Sasuke hadn't appeared in front of him, holding the kunai's blade between his middle and index fingers, still looking bored. "I didn't say start yet."

Kengen was visibly shaken, his eyes widening. Sasuke held up his arm and peaked at his watch, displaying a self-satisfied, if a bit evil, smirk. "Don't jump the kunai, Yokoana, it'll get you killed. You've got a good… 10 seconds to wait." He released the kunai with a flick that sent Kengen stumbling back. After a few seconds, an alarm beeped lightly and Sasuke turned that same self-satisfied smirk on his prospective students. "Start." They scattered into the forest and Sasuke walked calmly toward the center of the field, adjusting his headband. _'This should be fun.'_

**Well, I told you the warm-up section was on its way to an end! I was hoping to have the introductions and the test in the same chapter, but the words ran away with me and now, here we are. Thanks for reading, and I hope you see fit to give this story a review, favorite, or even a follow, but really, it's up to you. Have a nice day.**

**Scavenger**


	6. Logged

**Before the chapter, I want to give a shoutout to Dark Prime0 for being this story's first repeat reviewer! Thank you for your feedback; it's this kind of thing that keeps me writing.**

**Also, in response to Kyle Eulan: Eulyn is spelled with a "y", not an "a," but thanks.**

Chapter 5

Logged

"So… What do you know about him, ability-wise?" Omoide frowned at his friend's question. "Besides the Sharingan, not much, and somehow I doubt he's going to pull that out on academy graduates." Hiruzen grunted an annoyed affirmative and toyed with a kunai. "He's just standing there in the field, waiting. How can anyone stand that still for that long?" Omoide shrugged, "He's weird like that." The boy's expression was contemplative for a moment as he thought of options. "I'd suggest we misdirect him into thinking we're attacking alone, but he knows us too well; he'd smell a rat from the moment we made contact."

"So are we going to wait for Kengen to test the waters, or what?" The young Uzumaki's brow furrowed in concentration, "No, that would be wasting daylight. Kengen isn't going to attack until one of us feels the enemy out and if we wait for him to do it, we'll end up with barely any time to execute a plan. Misdirection might not be a _completely_ wasted effort, though…" He absent-mindedly bit down hard on his thumb and drew it across a sealing tag before lowering his goggles over his eyes. "Get me in close; I'll try to nail him with a paralysis tag. Cover me if I need to get out and meet me when you hear a barn owl hoot three times."

For his part, Sasuke was beginning to lose interest in the test. After the high of taking the bounce out of Kengen's metaphorical bungee had worn off, he'd quickly realized why Kakashi had always carried around reading material: waiting for an assault you knew would be easily rebuffed was incredibly boring. Sure, he'd learned his team could hide, but that didn't exactly alleviate his suffering at the hands of monotonous non-happening, now did it? Given the circumstances, he was ecstatic to have his thoughts interrupted by the sound of a fuuma shuriken whistling toward his back.

With a casual air to his movements, he pivoted to face the weapon and caught it neatly in his right hand. "You'll have to do better than-" But he was cut off by the last minute realization that whichever kid had thrown it had near-perfectly utilized kage shuriken no jutsu, hiding a second foldable shuriken in the first's shadow. He just managed to avoid it, bending backward at the knees and letting it pass over his face before springing forward off of his left hand and sending the first throwing star back to its point of origin. The whole exchange lasted all of five seconds.

Then he heard something bone-chilling: the poof of a Transformation dispelling. There was a static sort of tingling at his back and he stiffened, suddenly unable to move his limbs or back. Omoide was behind him, smirking and reaching for the bells at his hip.

Sasuke returned the smirk, "Sorry, wrong Sensei." The shadow clone dispelled in a puff of smoke. Omoide's face abruptly fell. "… Fuck."

**-G**

Kengen's reaction to the revelation of the kage bunshin was quite similar, and like Omoide, he tried to run for it. That was where the similarities ended however, as Kengen's rapid pivot brought him face to face with the exact person he was trying to escape. With a twitch of the graduate's finger, ninja wire was pulled taught all around them in a net. Kengen grinned and quickly kawarimi'd with a log before setting off the two-dozen medium-yield paper bombs he'd attached to the setup.

There was an ear-shattering BOOM and debris rained down from the sky for a moment in a rain of charred, splintered wood. A column of smoke rose from the patch of woods Kengen had inhabited until recently, marking the huge detonation. He didn't think he'd killed Sasuke, but he didn't see any way the jonin could have escaped the enormous conflagration, not with such limited space to maneuver between the trees and wire. He quickly checked around himself trying to locate his escaped sensei before turning back around. Sasuke stood there, his hand held up to his lip. "Lesson One: Ninjutsu."

A large fireball shot toward Kengen fast enough that he barely had time to kawarimi with a chunk of smoking wooden debris before it reached him. He felt a tap on his shoulder and tensed. "Lesson Two: Genjutsu." Snakes burrowed out of the ground and Kengen barely held on to the thought that it wasn't real. They were crawling up his legs, hissing and biting as they went. At this rate, he'd be covered before he knew it. He quickly clasped his hands together and tried to stop the flow of his chakra. _'Come on, come on, come on.'_ With a final yell, he broke free of the illusion, breathing heavily. Sasuke was holding a kunai directly in front of his face. He smirked, "Dead." Then he brought the kunai's ring down on the side of Kengen's head. Silently, he blacked out, mentally cursing everything to do with the Uchiha.

**-G**

A slap to the face was what brought Kengen out of the dark depths of his blackout. Quickly, he blinked back to wakefulness and saw Hiruzen above him frowning. "Welcome back, hime. Did you have a nice nap?" Kengen groaned and glared at the Sarutobi boy. "I'm not a fucking princess. How long was I out?" Omoide appeared at that moment, substituting with an exploding tag-covered log. There was a loud explosion in the distance as he glanced at his watch. "Alright guys, we have about twenty minutes to get this done, who's got ideas?"

"Wait wait wait, how did I get here?" Hiruzen grinned down at his teammate; "Omoide rescued you from being Sasuke's chair. He was sitting on you, sharpening a kunai. While he kept sensei busy, I ran in and got you." Omoide nodded, smirking. "I think it'll take him a second to recover from that present I sent him. Anyway, I figured we should try banding together what with him being a jonin and all." Kengen glared at Omoide, clearly not enamoured with the idea. "Look, grateful as I am for you saving me from the Uchiha's ass, what makes you think we're suddenly working together, Uzumaki?" Omoide turned his most condescending glare on Kengen. "Yokoana, I don't like you and I'm fairly certain that it's impossible for you to like anyone, but I know for a fact that you're a stronger shinobi than either of us and you just got your ass handed to you. If we want to have any chance of passing this bullshit test, then we'll have to work together."

The green-haired boy frowned contemplatively and growled in annoyance as he came to the same conclusion. Angry as he tended to be, he wasn't an idiot and his arrogance wasn't quite to the point of stupidity. He knew his Uzumaki teammate was right and what's more, he'd just risked himself to get him away from their new sensei. "Alright then oh great leader, what's your plan?" Omoide grinned conspiratorially.

"Here's what I'm thinking: we need to have two people attack him while another person sets up a trap. Between my taijutsu and Kengen's vibration techniques, we should be able to keep him thoroughly busy. While we're doing that, Hiruzen can set up one of his clan's fire ninjutsu. If you hit him with it while we're cutting off his escape avenues, he'll be forced to go up." Absentmindedly, he began pulling out sealing tags and wrapping them around a kunai. "I should be able to set this off on him and if I've done it right, he'll be immobilized and incapable of any chakra-based escape. Once he's down, we can rush in and steal the bells before he recovers."

Kengen nodded for a second. "You know, that just might work." His accepting frown slowly turned into a hopeful smirk, tinged with annoyance though it was. With a rock back, he jumped forward onto his feet and grinned predatorily. "Let's go smash our sensei's face in."

**-G**

Sasuke glanced at his watch and sighed: ten minutes to go. Much as he didn't want to fail Omoide or any of them really, he just might have to. With a sigh, he leaned back on one of the tying stumps and looked around. Maybe he'd try Yakiniku-Q for dinner. The owners had always seemed like nice enough people…

Suddenly, the sound of flying shuriken alerted him to an insane number of incoming projectiles. A mix of basic and oversized throwing stars were coming from two directions, pushing him back through the logs. He whirled, expecting an attack from behind only to be tackled from what had now become his blind spot. _'That's twice in the same day with the shuriken transformation trick. I must be getting soft.'_

Turning the momentum of the attack to his advantage, he rolled forward, sandwiching the offending almost-genin between himself and the ground. He heard a grunt as the air was driven from his attacker's lungs and jumped back to his feet.

His reprieve was short and he barely had time to recognize Kengen as the tackler before Omoide was coming at him, flying through a strange mix of academy basic and jyuken moves adapted for people with normal eyes. With his senses now on high alert, Sasuke noticed Kengen had recovered from his crushing and quickly pulled out a kunai to block the kid's two-handed stab, simultaneously stopping a jab at one of his pressure points from Omoide with his forearm. In this situation, some sensei might have worked with simple blocking or even told their students that they had officially passed their genin exam. Sasuke however, was not an ordinary sensei. With a smirk on his face, he began to fight back.

With effort as minimal as he could manage considering the two genin trying to kill him, Sasuke turned his block of Omoide's punch into a throw, grabbing the boy's wrist and bringing him around like a living flail toward Kengen. The green-haired boy neatly ducked the attack and made to push Sasuke's guarding kunai while he was off balance. Exerting visible effort, he removed one hand from his kunai as he stabbed forward and flipped through one-handed signs with the other.

**"****Busō o Hamingu (Humming Armament)."** Sasuke made to block it only to see his kunai's blade shatter before his eyes. Somewhere at the back of his mind, he heard a low buzzing sound and perceived a wide, predatory grin on the boy's face as his kunai sheered almost all the way through Sasuke's brand new flack jacket. A sheer moment before the stab would have drawn blood, he managed to kick under Kengen's guard, sending him flying backwards and taking the kunai with him.

Meanwhile, Omoide had pulled his own kunai and forced Sasuke to release his wrist with a downward stab toward his sensei's. Having dropped the remnants of his broken knife and his hold on Omoide's wrist, Sasuke punched toward the blue-haired boy's face, forcing him to hop backwards. Unfortunately for the last Uchiha, this was exactly what his genin had wanted.

**"Katon: Gōen no Jutsu (Fire Release: Great Flame Technique)!"**

A stream of raging fire erupted toward Sasuke and he quickly took stock of his situation. He couldn't outrun the flames, nor could he go toward them. Omoide was guarding him on one side and Kengen had turned his tumble into a controlled stop. He had only one way quick enough to get him to relative safety. With a tensing of his legs, he made a chakra-assisted leap into the air.

Sasuke's eyes narrowed when he saw a kunai hurtling toward him from the side, attached to a length of ninja wire. Immediately, he tried to kawarimi, but then sealing tags on the weapon's handle glowed red and the world went cold. His limbs and back went rigid and he suddenly and quite literally couldn't move to save his life.

The glowing, ingenious kunai connected solidly with his jacket and then he was being pulled back toward the ground. Already, feeling was beginning to return to his body as the seals sputtered on the edge of dying. Even with such short battery life, it was an impressive display. _'A chakra suppression seal layered on top of a paralysis seal all with an area-of-effect setup; for a novice, that's genius.'_

As Omoide jumped toward him, he finally felt the life flooding back into his limbs. With a grunt, he twisted to avoid the grinning Uzumaki…

Only to be met with a likewise grinning Hiruzen, his hand extending toward the bells hanging ever so tantalizingly close. With more effort than he cared to admit, Sasuke pulled Omoide around by his ninja wire and collided the two in mid-air. Flashing through hand-seals like there was no tomorrow, he tried to kawarimi with one of his pre-set logs only to find that they simply weren't there. All of them were gone and he couldn't exactly switch with the air that was left. Abandoning the substitution jutsu, he pulled the kunai still stuck in his flack jacket loose. Sasuke sent Omoide flying with a swinging kick to the side of his chest and landed with grace that belied just how good that attempt had been. He was almost breathing hard. Almost being the operative word.

The newly minted jonin took a look around and grinned inwardly. Kengen was panting, holding his chest and looking murderous that they'd lost. Hiruzen and Omoide were both lying on the ground, likewise out of breath and attempting to get back on their feet. Sasuke looked down at his watch and counted the last few seconds of the exam. _'And three, two, one.'_ The alarm seemed markedly louder this than it had before, blanketing the whole field and drowning out all other sounds. They had failed, even when they had banded together, combining resources and pulling out all the stops, they hadn't been able to get the bells and now they were going back to the academy and…

"Well, that was good. You all pass." Hiruzen (who had finally managed to get into a sitting position) and Kengen (who was kneeling on his way to standing) both stared at their sensei before uttering a simultaneous "What?" Omoide's eyes widened and he pushed up his goggles. "I was right! There was a secret criteria!" Sasuke smiled ever so slightly at his excited student. "Exactly how much did you have figured out?" The blue-haired Uzumaki looked up and to the right, his expression contemplative as he nervously scratched the back of his neck.

"Well, the whole setup of the test was fishy. There was no way any one of us could take you down alone, yet the bells seemed purposefully designed to push us into working individually. Then there's the simple fact that I've never seen or heard of a squad with less than three genin. Something was up and it had to do with dividing us, but that's pretty much all I managed to figure out before you called it." Sasuke nodded, "And after?" The Uzumaki boy quirked an eyebrow, "Well it's pretty obvious, isn't it?"

Kengen's eye's widened in realization. "It was a test of our teamwork, whether we'd be able to put our personal interests aside for the good of the group." He glared at Sasuke. "But why the elaborate setup; the food, the stumps, what point did they serve? There must have been an easier way to go about testing our group effectiveness." It was Sasuke's turn to raise an eyebrow. "Everything I did was to further drive you apart. Lack of food makes people irritable, the prospect of humiliation is a powerful motivator to chase victory blindly. However, these emotional responses have no place on a battlefield and if you'd let them get the better of you, then you wouldn't have had any place as shinobi as far as I was concerned."

With that, the raven-haired man's expression became even more serious. "Greed, pride, blind anger; when emotions like these are aloud to drive a shinobi, mistakes are made, lives are lost and countless people can end up dead. We are tools of our superiors and our own desires and to a certain extent we must act for ourselves and for those above us, but if that causes us to abandon our comrades, we are the lowest of the low. As my sensei would put it; 'those who break the rules are trash, but those who abandon their comrades are even worse than that.'"

He let them all think on that for a moment. After he decided they'd had enough time for contemplation, he made his tone slightly lighter. "Good job all of you. As of now, Team Ten is officially on active duty. Meet me on the south-stream bridge tomorrow at 7:00 AM sharp. See you then." Then he disappeared in a shunshin of leaves and wind, grinning inwardly as he went.

**Well, for the story's first big, committed action chapter, I think I did pretty well. Kengen's abilities will be expanded on in later chapters, but for now, we're pretty much out of the warm-up phase. There might be a bit of it left in the next chapter, but it's effectively over. See you next time!**

**Scavenger**


	7. Unhappy Circumstances

**Hello, internet! To the people who give a shit, I apologize profusely for the wait: I was out of the country with sporadic wifi and no laptop and the chapter was only half done. Then school started and basically, I've been prioritizing work on my original stuff.**

**Meanwhile, they're genin now! I'm hoping not to dwell on this phase, but I feel it's needed. Also, thanks to Taijen for the support! Reviews are the best way to keep me writing. Anyway, onward!**

Chapter 6

Unhappy Circumstances

Hidan awoke to find himself lying in a relatively uncomfortable bed, covered in a blanket and staring at a grey stone ceiling with little to no defining features. He couldn't move anything below his head and he had the distinct feeling that his limbs had been forced into the positions they now occupied. On top of that, he had no idea where or when he was. Between being put in an effective-death coma by that Nara bastard and then getting thrown in a sealing scroll, he had no idea what day, month, year or even fucking decade it was. All in all, it was a very annoying situation to wake up to and he had no way to share it with anyone. _'What,'_ he asked himself, _'is the fucking point of being in this much damn pain if you can't make anyone else feel it too?'_

His enraged thoughts were interrupted by the sound of a door opening and closing. He struggled to move his head and managed to turn it the 90 degrees necessary to see who had just walked into the room.

"Hidan, I've brought you some lunch. My sister-in-law cooks very well, you should try it." The functionally paralyzed silver-haired man in question turned an enraged eye on the man before him, "Where the fuck am I?" The man in the wooden mask, who so far hadn't deigned to give his name, sighed and unfolded a small chair he had brought with him, sitting down and sighing in a decidedly annoyed manner. "Look boy, it's been almost a month since we retrieved you. It's remarkable that you're still alive considering we haven't been giving you any fluids, but now that you're awake again, your ability won't do shit to keep you from starving. You do know the root of your ability, correct?"

Hidan shrugged, clearly not especially interested. "I don't fucking die, what the hell else is there to understand?" The eyes behind the mask narrowed and the man sat a bit straighter in his chair, suddenly serious. "There is quite a bit to understand. You are one of the **Seiki Karu (Century Reapers)**, denied Lord Jashin's gift so as to grant it en masse. You can never be killed or die from a circumstance created through battle, but if you were to stop eating, you would starve just like the rest of us." He placed the tray of food on the small table next to Hidan's bed and stood up. "No ability is perfect, regardless of its source. Just as the Uzumakis found a flaw in the work of the Shinigami, so there is a flaw in the work of Lord Jashin. The only man who can kill you is yourself and even then, you will be denied a holy death on the end of a blade. You are a tool for our Lord's work, nothing more. Never forget that."

With that, the man stood up and placed his hand on Hidan's shoulder. "I'm removing the nerve seals on your upper body. Eat, we're taking you out soon for a test run and you need to recover your strength." With that, he left the room, leaving Hidan to eat his meal and ponder what the fuck was even going on.

**-G**

"I'm SO BORED that my brain is turning to mush." Omoide spared a glance toward his best friend and went back to weeding. "It's mindless labor, you don't need your brain. Just keep doing it and stop making a fuss."

Now normally, weeding would not be a problem for Team 10; they'd been forced to do it many times in the last week and gotten quite good at it in the process, but today was different. Today, they were weeding the western half of the first training ground; in other words, five square miles of open space, with no shade in sight. Just as a bonus, nobody had used or even looked at it for years, so it was a textbook example of overgrown.

"Come on knuckleheads, if you don't finish before Konohamaru's team, you're all running ten laps around the village." Hiruzen let out a groan and straightened up, trying to work out the kinks his back had developed over the course of the morning. Bending over for hours on end tends to do that. "Sensei, we've been working for five hours! It's only ten in the morning! Give us a moment!" Sasuke's eyes narrowed, "No enemy worth fighting will 'give you a moment'. You all have to learn how to push through your exhaustion, and this is as close to a class for that as you're going to get. Now shut up and keep working, I'm trying to read."

As previously mentioned, a week had passed since the bell test and Team Ten had been taking an arduous series of D-Ranks, lacking the chance of death needed to be C-Ranks, but not so easy that they wouldn't be tired out of their minds by the end of the day. This cleanup job was only the latest in a series of tortuous days of labor, the first of which had been the capture of Tora the cat and her litter of equally demonic offspring. Sasuke allowed himself a small, momentary smirk at the memory. Now _that_ had been fun to watch.

About an hour passed with not much of note occurring. Sasuke could feel Konohamaru's eyes on the back of his head as he read one of Omoide's innumerable novels, but decided it was a fact best left alone. Even after twelve years, he could understand the suspicion of his fellow jonin; he'd been a nuke-nin for years after all. Betrayal like that didn't disappear without leaving its share of scars.

Meanwhile the kids had made exceptional progress. Kengen's **Busō o Hamingu (Humming Armament)** had been especially good for taking out the area's tougher plant life. At one point, Hiruzen had asked if he could just burn the place until there wasn't any vegetation left and have someone else plant fresh grass, but Sasuke had decided against it; the whole point of the mission was to get them used to tough, monotonous work. Letting Hiruzen finish the whole thing in one swoop would be nothing but counterproductive, at least from a training perspective.

**"VICTORY!"** He turned to see Hiruzen holding a plant with enormous roots, grinning as though he'd just defeated his worst enemy. With a happy roar, he threw it down hard onto their latest pile of plant matter. Kengen's glare was almost as incredulous as it was annoyed. "It's just a fucking plant! For the love of all the gods, calm down!" Hiruzen turned on Kengen and let out what could only be described as a growl. Both boys tensed and Sasuke could see another fight brewing. Without a word he narrowed his eyes and released a tiny sliver of killing intent into the air. All three boys stiffened and turned to him with undisguised fear in their eyes. With a gulp, the Team's resident Sarutobi looked around the few feet of field they had left to clear.

As quickly as it had come, the subtle pressure in the air lifted and a triumphant grin came to Hiruzen's face. Quickly, he ran over to a large plant and pulled it out of the ground. "THERE! If we're not done now, we never will be!" Sasuke looked around the field, activating his sharingan just to be sure. He gave the whole thing a once-over and frowned. _'He has a point.'_ After a few moments of thinking, he nodded. "Right, we're done here. We'll report to the Hokage tomorrow morning for payment."

Relief was evident on all of their faces. Deciding they should be punished for such blatant disrespect (Sasuke's sadistic streak had mellowed, but never really gone away), he brought up his book to hide a self-satisfied smirk. "Because you finished early, you only have to run five laps around the village. I'll be watching, so don't try to slack off." They all groaned, but at this point, they knew better than to dawdle. Moods dampened, they all set off at a jog for the edge of the village, thinking the curses they dared not speak.

**-G**

The next morning went largely as usual. Kengen arrived at their meeting bridge several minutes early and Omoide and Hiruzen got there exactly on time, right as Sasuke appeared in a flurry of lightning. They all set out for the Academy in their usual moods; all except Omoide, who was clearly preoccupied. When Shizune smiled at them and told them to wait outside for a moment, he actually gulped.

The Godaime herself was stressed out what with having a large amount of paperwork to get through before having to go off to the annual Kage Summit on top of mission assignments to the point where she hadn't slept in several days. Just a few hours ago, she had seriously contemplated using a soldier pill just to get some energy back. Needless to say, her customarily bad mood was even worse than usual. "Tsunade-sama, Team Ten is here to see you." The Godaime waved half-formed acknowledgement to her assistant and frowned. "Thank you Shizune, send them in."

Omoide came in first, followed closely by Hiruzen and Kengen, then finally Sasuke. The three boys lined up in front of their sensei. "Hokage-sama, We're ready for today's first mission." The woman sighed and looked down at her clipboard. "Let's see, one of Tora's kittens is out again, an elderly woman needs a rat infestation in her backyard cleared out, the Southwest Block is due for garbage collection-" "No."

Tsunade was unprepared for the even, calm interruption and paused, frowning. "I'm sorry Uzumaki-san, is there a problem?" The boy seemed about to falter for a moment, but his conviction quickly returned. "With all due respect, Hokage-sama, these missions are below us. All three of us were in the top four for academy taijutsu scores, and none of us did badly in ninjutsu either. We're shinobi and much as it's nice helping out the village doing grunt jobs, it seems like a waste. We were hoping for a higher-level mission this time." Hiruzen nodded somewhat enthusiastically and Kengen rolled his eyes, but couldn't disguise a hint of bitterness in his expression.

Tsunade, for her part, managed to keep a straight face for several seconds before her frown gave way to several cackles and then full-blown laughter. A few more awkward seconds passed as the Godaime Hokage came down from what could only be described as a giggling fit. "Oh gods, I needed that." A few more snickers escaped before she could continue. "Best in the academy? Kid, let me tell you what that amounts to out in the real world: jack shit. An A in some class doesn't mean anything when you're getting your jugular cut open. Now, I think you've got a kitten to capture. You're dismissed."

Sasuke made a quick visual survey of his students. Kengen was of course infuriated and looked to be on the verge of a tirade while Hiruzen seemed momentarily stunned, but it was Omoide's reaction that really caught his attention. He'd never really seen the young Uzumaki mad – he tended to keep his negative negative reactions to simple annoyance – but this was different. His mouth was curved visibly down, no more than if he were simply distracted by something moderately frustrating but his eyes were narrowed in the chilling death-glare his mother's family was famous for. It was an intimidating expression, even taking into consideration some of the people he was in a room with.

"Team, you go on ahead, I have to talk to the Hokage." Kengen opened his mouth to protest, but Sasuke put the smallest bit of murderous intent into a glare. The young Hagoromo backed off and the boys walked out, sending dirty looks over their shoulders. Once they were gone, Sasuke rounded on Tsunade, glaring. "Lady Tsunade, with all due respect, what the fuck was that?"

Once again, the Godaime managed to keep her face completely straight, looking through some paperwork as she offhandedly explained. "Exactly what it sounded like: I told them they weren't good enough for a C-rank mission. Even if I _did_ think they were ready, we don't have anything above D-rank on Genin level; hell, we aren't even taking anything over C-rank outside of ongoing ANBU operations until I get back from the annual summit in a week. Omoide is overly sure of himself and the Green-haired brat was marked down as – and I quote – 'almost as arrogant as Uchiha Sasuke when he was at the academy.' I wasn't about to send that out into the field, much less on a mission where others' lives would almost definitely be at stake. Now, is there anything else?"

Sasuke kept his glare leveled, even and piercing as always. As he looked on his Hokage, he couldn't help but wonder if she had been this world-weary before the war, before Naruto's death. They seemed to have had some form of bond, and he could tell she'd been seriously messed up by his sacrifice. "I'll admit they're not the most friendly team, but neither was Team 7 and a trial by fire was exactly what we needed to pull together and work as comrades. I'd be there and I don't doubt that would mean Tenzo hiding in the shadows, so it's not as if it's really that much of a risk. I'm not asking for something important. All I want is something to challenge them." With that, he did a stiff mock-salute and shunshined away in a flash of lightning.

**So yeah, not much to say here really. Sorry again for the ridiculous wait, but hey, factors conspire and suddenly it's been months since I posted last. Hope you liked the chapter despite it being mostly setup and filler, I thought I should get SOMETHING out after all this time. **

**Leave a review, please!**

**Scavenger**


	8. Storm Clouds

**A long wait for this one, sorry. I'm not even going to try defending it, I've been lazy. Now that that's out of the way, on to what you came here for!**

Chapter 7

Storm Clouds

Teishoku was on edge to say the least. Here they were again, in a bustling city. The buildings were shorter than the ones he'd seen in Amegakure, but the city seemed far more alive. The part they now found themselves in was relatively close to the Hokage Mountain, and mostly made of wood. The Buildings seemed strangely exact and tended to involve a dome of some kind. Really, it was just a residential space. They were taking the long way round to their real destination; his uncle had explained that eve with their perception seals, it was best not to draw attention to themselves. Teishoku might have asked how wearing a giant wooden mask made him inconspicuous, but he had a creeping suspicion that would lead to discipline later. Better to stay quiet and just keep walking.

They were nearing the edge of dome-town, as Teishoku had decided to call it. Maybe soon they would be finished and go home. Honestly, it was getting boring just walking around like this.

As though something had heard his thoughts, the sound of shuriken caused him to instinctively duck. He'd be blamed for this somehow, he just knew it.

**-G**

"Oh come on, show me a jutsu! I'm tired of throwing shuriken, it's boring!" Shikamaru leveled an even gaze on his son and thought hard about what his next move should be. With his wife out of town on a diplomatic mission, he'd been free to go behind her back and show his son some ninja techniques, mostly to make him stop asking. He knew Temari didn't approve (though he couldn't fathom why, as the daughter of a Kage, she'd been trained from a young age herself). However, the intricate labyrinth that was his wife's mind was not what he had to be considering right now. If he didn't give in and show some form of ninjutsu, it was likely that Enro would complain, and he had no doubt that the blame would lie solely on his head when word got back to his blonde-haired spouse.

Conversely, if he _did_ show the little spiky-haired noise-ball something, he'd in all likelihood try it out and end up hurting himself.

In the end (which really meant after about a half-second of thought) he decided to show the kid a shadow technique with one special factor at play. "Alright, I'll show you the **Kagemane no Jutsu (Shadow Possession Jutsu)**. And guess what?" Enro jumped up and down excitedly, a grin breaking out over his face. "What, what?! Is it cool? It sounds cool!" The Nara clan head wondered offhandedly how the kid kept up that much energy, but the knowing smirk that broke out on his face belied his wondering. "You get to be the test dummy."

Enro went pale and seemed about to complain, but their father-son interaction was cut abruptly short by the sound of a huge explosion. Shikamaru's mind immediately began flashing through possible causes as he turned sharply to find the source. His eyes widened as he spotted it; a conflagration that size was either the result of a powerful paper bomb, which would have been immediately disabled upon entering Konoha without the proper sealing formulas, or an explosive katon jutsu going wrong somehow. Either they had a traitor in their midst, or someone had fucked up royally, possibly both.

"Enro, get inside the house, you know how to activate the security seals. Do _not_ open the door unless it's me or another clan member." The boy nodded, tearing his eyes away from the billowing ash cloud and sprinting back to the house. Shikamaru watched him close the door and waited for the brief glow of seals activating. Without another word, he took off. _'The smoke is coming from the Yamato District. What the hell would someone want to blow up there?'_

**-G**

Hiruzen wasn't completely sure how or why they were in this situation. One moment, he and Omoide were walking back to his house on what was their first day off in over a week and the next, Omoide was throwing kunai at some red-head kid in boots and a tall, lanky-looking guy in a trench coat and a mask. The young Sarutobi hadn't noticed them until that moment. How had that happened exactly? He wasn't sure. Great.

That was when the kid had started trying to kill them. And the sad thing was, he was doing a damn good job of it. And so Hiruzen and his best friend found themselves quite simply outmatched against a kid who didn't look even a year older than them.

Omoide had quickly engaged the redhead in a furious taijutsu battle. The kid used a style neither he nor Hiruzen recognized, ruthless with almost no thought given to defense in favor of fast, powerful offensive moves. It was a credit to all their hard training that neither of them ended up gutted on the end of a kunai. Even after Hiruzen joined the fight, it only took a few minutes for both of them to be sent flying. Omoide had been knocked out of the fight; for all his skill, he was simply too slow to keep up. Hiruzen had just managed to keep his best friend from being killed with a quick flurry of shuriken as he fell.

The boy was forced to dodge and Hiruzen quickly flashed through his options; he had an opening while his opponent was still in the process of dodging, but if he used **Gōen no Jutsu (Great Flame Technique)**, he risked hitting Omoide as well as his target. His only other option was a jutsu he hadn't fully mastered yet, but then again, if he couldn't end the fight soon, they were both dead anyway. Wordlessly, he flashed through hand-signs and even as he did so, the redhead went through his own. Almost simultaneously, they released their techniques.

"**Katon: Yari no Seisei (Fire Realease: Purifying Spear)!**"

"**Futon: ****Fūjin Shōheki (Wind Release: Wind God Barrier)!**"

Hiruzen's javelin of concentrated flame shot from his mouth just as ripples appeared in the air in front of the other boy. Both saw the result of their clash a moment before it occurred, but neither was fast enough to avert it or even to get out of the way. As shielding wind met blazing spear, a screech rent the air, followed by the eardrum-shattering **BOOM** that comes with any large explosion.

Hiruzen couldn't truly attest to what happened next, what with being temporarily deafened and blinded by a bright explosion, but he saw, as the fire and smoke started to clear that the man with the mask was back.

He stood in the middle of the flames, heedless of his dangerous surroundings. The redhead boy was slung over his shoulder like a sack of potatoes and Omoide was knocked out a few steps away from him. A large scroll was held under his other arm. In that moment, the man began to advance on him and he could feel his killing intent like a smothering blanket of pure primordial evil. Hiruzen saw his own death and for the first time in his life, he felt real, instinctual fear.

But the man must have heard something the terrified Sarutobi couldn't, because with a sharp glance over his shoulder, he jumped away to the rooftops and shot off in the direction of the village limits. Offhandedly, Hiruzen felt debilitating yet somehow numb pain all along his arms, probably burns he thought. The last things Hiruzen saw before he passed out were Shikamaru-oji rushing after the masked man and a woman with pink hair appearing at his side, hands already glowing green with healing jutsu.

**-G**

'_There, up ahead.' _The chakra-sensor ANBU nodded to Shikamaru and received a quick nod back, the target was in sight. Chouji likewise acknowledged the signal, face set in hard anger. Shikamaru almost felt pity for their enemy; an angry Akimichi was something he was happy having never been confronted with.

Shikamaru would have preferred that they set up a trap for their quarries, but there was no time. They were nearing the border; time was up. He held up one finger, then a fist to his team; Attack Pattern 10, designed for stopping a small, pursued group. Considering the short notice and lack of knowledge, it would have to do. _'Aaaaaand… Go! __**Kage Nui no Jutsu(Shadow Sewing Jutsu)!**__'_

Tendrils of stabbing, shadowy death shot down the trunk of the tree and toward the enemy duo. Predictably, they shot off to the right, only to be greeted by a barrage of water bullets. This time, they leapt up into the branches of the forest, just barely getting out of the path of the ANBU's suiton technique. But even then they weren't safe.

"**BUBUN BAIKA NO JUTSU (Partial Expansion Jutsu)!**" An enormous fist, probably the size of a small house, smashed into the branch they had landed on, snapping it like a dry twig. Shikamaru didn't see either of them dodge, but he had the strangest feeling he should guard his back…

With a push of chakra, his shadow needles shot out behind him in a deadly barrier, holding a strange, serrated blade just a few inches from the back of his neck. Chouji appeared next to him, fist back to normal size, still wearing a passionately angry glare. Shikamaru turned to face his adversary. A masked, wooden face greeted him, blank, yet somehow smug and infuriating. "Well, Nara Shikamaru and Konoha's Red Monarch. You know, I don't recall either of you having a Suiton Chakra Nature. Strange."

The red-haired kid fell limp from the branches above, followed by the ANBU tracker, who landed catlike on Shikamaru's other side. "Well, that answers that question. **Chakra Rosen Fuuin (Chakra Line Sealing).**" Glowing symbols shot down the shadowy tendrils of Shikamaru's jutsu and he immediately felt a pull on his chakra. The Nara cancelled the technique and jumped back so Chouji could perform his own. The masked man jumped back over the fast-approaching fist and twisted around to deflect several shuriken from the ANBU tracker, landing a branch back and blocking a giant-sized punch from Chouji with both of his hands "**Shouheki Fuuin: ****Shōgeki Kyūshū** **(Barrier Sealing: Impact Absorption)**." The huge fist stopped dead in its tracks and Chouji's eyes widened. "**Sumiton:** **Irezumi o Kōsatsu (Ink Release: Strangling Tattoo)**."

Shikamaru let loose a barrage of shuriken and shot forward to engage the masked man in close. Or at least that was the plan; but the infuriatingly agile man deflected and dodged out of the way, holding one of his hands in a seal. Shikamaru heard Chouji start to choke and caught him before he could fall. _'Without the element of surprise, my jutsu are useless against him, and I'm not fast enough to beat him up close. I could beat him if I just had some preparation time, but Chouji won't last forever like this. Where the hell is that ANBU tracker?'_ As if on cue, a jet of water shot toward the man's side, hitting him with a ridiculous amount of piercing force, only for the masked man to burst like an ink bubble. Shikamaru whirled to find the boy gone. As Chouji slowly got to his knees, breathing heavily, he drew (not for the first irritating time that day) a complete blank. _'Who the hell was that?'_

**-G**

"Tsunade-sama, the damage reports have come back; a few apartment complexes had to have fires put out, we've got Tenzo running damage control there. Uzumaki Omoide and Sarutobi Hiruzen are in the hospital with moderate to severe burns and lacerations, but they're both expected to make full recoveries. We found three guards dead at the gate, their families have been notified and funerals are set for next Monday. Nara-sama's team returned about fifteen minutes ago without the two enemy combatants. He insisted on going straight to the library, something about strange sealing formulas. The entire team was effectively unharmed." Tsunade leaned back in her chair and put a hand to her temple; of course this would happen right before the summit, it was just her luck.

"Thank you, Shizune, tell Tenzo to report to me after he's finished repairs and make sure to set up meetings with the guards' families, I'll need to see their personnel files… and some sake." Shizune frowned and nodded, making a mental note to water down her mentor's favorite drink. There was no sense in making a bad situation worse.

Meanwhile, Tsunade contemplated what the fuck was going on. There hadn't been a single attack on Konoha since the Pain Invasion. Even something like this, with relatively little collateral damage was unprecedented at this point. So who had managed to pull together the balls needed to mount an attack like this? Kiri and Suna had been staunch allies of Konoha ever since the war and Kumo and Iwa were bound by a non-aggression pact with the other villages. Even considering the enemy had gotten away; with Shikamaru involved they would be identified before too long. What organization besides one of the main villages could try something like this without fear of obliteration? Who would even have a motive?

Her door opened and closed, cutting off her thoughts. Shikamaru had a look of absolute seriousness on his face. "Hokage-sama, we have a lot to talk about."


End file.
